Italian
One day, a long time ago, I read that a priest gave a sermon on Easter that was just one sentence:
“Today Christ is risen, but you still don’t believe it anyway!”.
It is a provocative, almost harsh statement. Yet, if we are honest, it touches on something true within us. Because the Resurrection is not difficult to understand… it is difficult to truly believe.
The first disciples reacted the same way. When Mary Magdalene and the other women return from the tomb, telling that they have seen the Lord alive, no one believes them. They think it’s a dream, an illusion, the ramblings of women. Only later, slowly, through direct and concrete personal encounters, astonishment opens up to faith.
Easter does not arise from strong faith. It comes from doubtful, wounded, disillusioned hearts: the heart of the two from Emmaus who return home tired and disheartened, with sad faces.
And so that phrase, instead of being an accusation, becomes a mirror: “You still don’t believe it!”. Perhaps it’s true. Perhaps we believe in words, but then we live as if Christ were still in the tomb. As if death had the final word. As if evil were stronger than good.
But Easter arrives right there. Not to scold us, but to surprise us.
The risen Christ does not wait for perfect faith. He enters closed upper rooms, into fears, into doubts. As he will do with Thomas, who asks to see in order to believe. And Jesus does not reject him: he shows him the wounds, meets him right in his need for proof.
The Resurrection does not erase wounds, it transforms them.
And so the real question is not: “Do you believe or not?”. But: “If Christ has truly risen, what changes in your life?”.
Everything changes.
Change the way you look at pain: it is no longer an end.
Change the way you look at sin: it is no longer a definitive condemnation.
Change the way you look at death: it is no longer the final word.
“Christ is risen, He is truly risen!”.
The leap in quality is all in this adverb: truly!
And this is why Easter is for us. Not for those who are already certain, but for those who are on a journey. Not for those who see everything clearly, but for those who, amidst doubts and hopes, still dare to open a crack.
Today, more than proving something, let us allow ourselves to be encountered. Because the Risen One is not an idea to be accepted. It is a presence to be welcomed.
And, little by little, our heart and our life will be able to say and testify:
“Christ is risen! He is truly risen!”.
